October 05, 2009

By By Tom Ferguson, London

The 2010 Glastonbury festival has sold out within 12 hours of tickets going on sale.

Tickets for the U.K. event at Worthy Farm, Pilton, Somerset went on sale Oct. 4 at 9am BST, but at 9pm, the festival's official Web site posted a message announcing that all the tickets had gone. The site (www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk) also said that a "small number" of tickets would be going on sale in the coming weeks "when any failed transactions have been cancelled."

The 2010 festival will take place June 23-27: no announcement has yet been made about the bill (the line-up is traditionally announced nearer the time of the event), although rumors have been circulating that U2 will be among the headliners. The 2009 headliners were Blur, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young.

A three-day pass for the event, excluding booking fee and delivery, costs ?185 ($294.70), up ?10 ($15.93) from 2009. Purchasers were obliged to register in advance and could pay a ?50 ($79.64) deposit for each ticket with the balance to be settled by February 2010, or pay outright.

This year marks 40 years since the first Glastonbury festival took place, headlined by Tyrannosaurus Rex. The 1970 event, known as the Pilton Festival, was attended by 1,500 people; the 2009 festival attracted 177,500, with a combined audience of 10 million viewers also watching TV coverage from the BBC.

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